The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 31

August 8, 1883.

AT THE GRAVE OF BENJAMIN W. PARKER.

* This was the first tribute ever delivered by Colonel Ingersoll at a grave. Mr. Parker himself was an Agnostic, was the father of Mrs. Ingersoll, and was always a devoted friend and admirer of the Colonel even before the latter's marriage with his daughter.

Peoria, Ill., May 24, 1876.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: To fulfill a promise made many years ago, I wish to say a word.

He whom we are about to lay in the earth, was gentle, kind and loving in his life. He was ambitious only to live with those he loved. He was hospitable, generous, and sincere. He loved his friends, and the friends of his friends. He returned good for good. He lived the life of a child, and died without leaving in the memory of his family the record of an unkind act. Without a.s.surance, and without fear, we give him back to Nature, the source and mother of us all.

With morn, with noon, with night; with changing clouds and changeless stars; with gra.s.s and trees and birds, with leaf and bud, with flower and blossoming vine,--with all the sweet influences of nature, we leave our dead.

Husband, father, friend, farewell.

A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL

Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., May 31, 1879.

* The funeral of the Hon. E. C. Ingersoll took place yesterday afternoon at four o'clock, from his late residence, 1403 K Street The only ceremony at the house, other than the viewing of the remains, was a most affecting pathetic, and touching address by Col. Robert G. ingersoll, brother of the deceased. Not only the speaker, but every one of his hearers were deeply affected. When he began to read his eloquent characterization of the dead man his eyes at once filled with tears. He tried to hide them, but he could not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's coffin in uncontrollable grief It was only after some delay, and the greatest efforts a self-mastery, that Colonel Ingersoll was able to finish reading his address. When he had ceased speaking, the members of the bereaved family approached the casket and looked upon the form which it contained, for the last time. The scene was heartrending.

The devotion of all connected with the household excited the sympathy of all and there was not a dry eye to be seen.

The pall-bearers--Senator William B. Allison, Senator James G. Blaine, Senator David Davis, Senator Daniel W Voorhees.

Representative James A. Garfield, Senator A. S Paddock, Representative Thomas Q. Boyd of Illinois, the Hon. Ward H.

Lermon, ex-Congressman Jere Wilson, and Representative Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois--then bore the remains to the hea.r.s.e, and the lengthy cortege proceeded to the Oak Hill Cemetery, where the remains were interred, in the presence of the family and friends, without further ceremony.-- National Republican, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., June 3, 1879.

DEAR FRIENDS: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me.

The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west.

He had not pa.s.sed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he pa.s.sed to silence and pathetic dust.

Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken s.h.i.+p. For whether in mid-sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther sh.o.r.e, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.

This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the suns.h.i.+ne he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superst.i.tions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day.

He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.

He was a wors.h.i.+per of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: "_For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer_." He believed that happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only wors.h.i.+p, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers.

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "I am better now."

Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.

The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.

And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust.

Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man.

A TRIBUTE TO THE REV. ALEXANDER CLARK.

Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. July 13, 1879.

UPON the grave of the Reverend Alexander Clark I wish to place one flower. Utterly dest.i.tute of cold, dogmatic pride, that often pa.s.ses for the love of G.o.d; without the arrogance of the "elect;" simple, free, and kind--this earnest man made me his friend by being mine. I forgot that he was a Christian, and he seemed to forget that I was not, while each remembered that the other was at least a man.

Frank, candid, and sincere, he practiced what he preached, and looked with the holy eyes of charity upon the failings and mistakes of men. He believed in the power of kindness, and spanned with divine sympathy the hideous gulf that separates the fallen from the pure.

Giving freely to others the rights that he claimed for himself, it never occurred to him that his G.o.d hated a brave and honest unbeliever. He remembered that even an Infidel had rights that love respects; that hatred has no saving power, and that in order to be a Christian it is not necessary to become less than a human being. He knew that no one can be maligned into kindness; that epithets cannot convince; that curses are not arguments, and that the finger of scorn never points toward heaven. With the generosity of an honest man, he accorded to all the fullest liberty of thought, knowing, as he did, that in the realm of mind a chain is but a curse.

For this man I felt the greatest possible regard. In spite of the taunts and jeers of his brethren, he publicly proclaimed that he would treat Infidels with fairness and respect; that he would endeavor to convince them by argument and win them with love. He insisted that the G.o.d he wors.h.i.+ped loved the well-being even of an Atheist. In this grand position he stood almost alone. Tender, just, and loving where others were harsh, vindictive, and cruel, he challenged the admiration of every honest man. A few more such clergymen might drive calumny from the lips of faith and render the pulpit worthy of esteem.

The heartiness and kindness with which this generous man treated me can never be excelled. He admitted that I had not lost, and could not lose, a single right by the expression of my honest thought. Neither did he believe that a servant could win the respect of a generous master by persecuting and maligning those whom the master would willingly forgive.

While this good man was living, his brethren blamed him for having treated me with fairness. But, I trust, now that he has left the sh.o.r.e touched by the mysterious sea that never yet has borne, on any wave, the image of a homeward sail, this crime will be forgiven him by those who still remain to preach the love of G.o.d.

His sympathies were not confined within the prison, of a creed, but ran out and over the walls like vines, hiding the cruel rocks and rusted bars with leaf and flower. He could not echo with his heart the fiendish sentence of eternal fire. In spite of book and creed, he read "between the lines" the words of tenderness and love, with promises for all the world.. Above, beyond, the dogmas of his church--humane even to the verge of heresy--causing some to doubt his love of G.o.d because he failed to hate his unbelieving fellow-men, he labored for the welfare of mankind and to his work gave up his life with all his heart.

AT A CHILD'S GRAVE.

Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., January 8, 1882.

MY FRIENDS: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep side by side.

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing--life or death. We cannot say that death is not a good. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate--the child dying in its mother's arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life's uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch.

Every cradle asks us "Whence?" and every coffin "Whither?" The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions just as well as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignorance of the one, is as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other. No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears.

May be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and strain within our arms could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. May be this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate. And I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not. Another life is nought, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here.

They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the n.o.bler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the common wants of life--the needs and duties of each hour--their grief will lessen day by day, until at last this grave will be to them a place of rest and peace--almost of joy. There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer. If they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living--Hope for the dead.